The present invention relates to local area networks (LANs) and more particularly to achieving effective communication within a LAN in a media that is unsupported in all computer systems within the LAN.
The ability to share information across computer networks has been a significant achievement in the advancement of the computer industry. Certain protocols exist to support the communication of information across networks. Systems must therefore be able to provide data in accordance with these protocols in order to effectively utilize the networks.
From the software perspective of computer networks, application programs remain largely unaware of the presence of a network. The data they provide to or receive from the network is typically processed via software modules compatible with the network. FIG. 1 illustrates two typical approaches to providing the processing capabilities suitable for supporting network access. An initial approach for processing support utilized implementation of monolithic network protocol software (box 10) to achieve the translations and iterations necessary to take data from/to an application program (box 12) and transfer it to/from a network adapter, e.g., an Ethernet adapter, (box 14), as is well understood by those skilled in the art. Unfortunately, monolithic protocols 10 tend to be large with different adjustments required for each different vendor""s version of the network adapter 14. Further, any changes done to the network adapter 14 usually require replacement of the entire monolithic protocol 10, which often results in inefficient and redundant development efforts for portions of the protocol 10.
Improvements in operating system software provides another more direct and efficient approach for supporting the network adapter 14 by containing much of the necessary processing as a part of the operating system itself. With the incorporation of the processing into the operating system, data from the application program 12 becomes layered with an operating system (OS) provided network protocol layer that is independent of the media access controller (MAC) of the system (box 16). Thus, a data packet 20 is appended with a protocol header 22. An operating system provided network protocol multiplexer that is dependent on the MAC (box 24) is further provided to pass the layered data through for addition of an independent hardware vendor (IHV) layer (box 26). The software module, IHV-provided layer 26 suitably appends a network header 28 that is in conformance with the network protocol, e.g., Ethernet protocol, and the vendor-specific MAC and adapter 14 of the system, as is well appreciated by those skilled in the art.
Unfortunately, the ability to support new media and protocols by an operating system is limited. The updating or redesign of operating systems tends to lag developments in hardware. For example, the emergence of wireless local area networks (WLANs) and the corresponding draft IEEE 802.11 protocol is not currently a network media standard supported by operating systems, although increasing numbers of computer systems include appropriate hardware/network adapters for communicating in a WLAN. In the past, when a network media has been introduced, initial support for the network media occurs through provision of a new monolithic mechanism 30 that adds the appropriate protocol header 32 and media header 34 to the data 36 from an application 12, as shown in FIG. 2. The system""s network media adapter 40, e.g., an 802.11 adapter, then suitably transfers the packet across the media. The use of a monolithic approach does provide access for a system to the media, but as mentioned above, the monolithic approach is rather inefficient, since a variety of vendor-specific adapters and protocols must be supported. Thus, the monolithic mechanism 30 tends to become quite large with increases from the required awareness of multiple protocols.
Another typical solution for supporting the media attempts is to utilize existing operating system support for a known media standard. Thus, the initial process of transmitting data occurs as appears for a supported media, as described with reference to the boxes 12, 16, 24, and 26 of the right-hand side of FIG. 1. However, the packet is encapsulated with the data necessary for the unsupported media and protocol. Thus, as shown in FIG. 2, an IHV provided encapsulation layer 42 appends the media header 34 for the unsupported media standard to the encapsulated packet formed for the known media standard before being provided to a new media standard network adapter 44.
While either solution does achieve transmission across the media, the ability of those systems performing encapsulation to communicate with those having the monolithic solution is substantially nonexistent. Systems that perform encapsulation are able to recognize and appropriately process the known media data within the encapsulated packet. However, the monolithic systems are usually incapable of understanding such an encapsulated packet. Further, the packet having the proper format for the media remains untranslatable to the encapsulating system, since the encapsulating system does not have appropriate means to process unsupported media data directly. Thus, a barrier exists, as represented by block 50, between encapsulated packets and unencapsulated packets transmitted on the media. Proper communication is therefore not achieved, making the media highly ineffective for data transmission.
Accordingly, what is needed is a software-based solution that supports communication in a media by bridging data transfer between differing approaches to conformance with the media protocol.
The present invention provides method and system aspects for achieving effective communication among end stations in a local area network when portions of the network lack operating system support for the media of data transmission within the network. A method aspect includes providing an encapsulated packet from one end station of the portion of the plurality of end stations, and utilizing a tag as an indicator of encapsulation within the encapsulated packet. In a further method aspect, a method for communicating in a wireless local area network (WLAN) includes forming a data packet in accordance with a known media standard in a portion of the plurality of end stations. The method further includes encapsulating the data packet in accordance with the wireless media standard, and tagging the data packet to indicate encapsulation.
A system for computer networking according to a new media standard includes at least one first system, the at least one first system capable of producing encapsulated data packets, the encapsulated data packets including a tag, and at least one second system, the at least one second system capable of producing pure data packets, wherein communication between the at least one first station and the at least one second station occurs through recognition of packet type in the at least one first system based on whether the tag is present in a communicated packet.